College Lacks Adequate Resources for Rape Crises

A student looking for support and appropriate medical attention following sexual assault should search beyond the walls of University Health Services (UHS) and away from most administrative support, say two Harvard undergraduate women who were assaulted last spring.

One woman, raped by Joshua M. Elster, Class of 2000, turned first to UHS. But when the College's counseling fell short of what she needed, she looked off campus for continued support.

The woman assaulted by D. Drew Douglas, also Class of 2000, originally contacted the peer counseling group Response. Upon their advice, she says she steered clear of UHS and headed to Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, whose rape crisis intervention center is among the best in the region.

Now, with the student-run Coalition Against Sexual Violence picking up their cause, the women have publicly criticized the University's support mechanisms. Together, they say they hope to change the resources available to Harvard students in times of crisis.

For the members of the Coalition, who came together following the Elster rape in February 1998, that means building a women's center, improving the Sexual Assault/Sexual Harassment (SASH) residential advising system, and offering round-the-clock counseling services.

Because the way things stand right now, they say, undergraduates who have been sexually assaulted turn away from Harvard just when they need the College's support the most.

Initial Contact

When the woman assaulted by Douglas first reported her attack, she says she quickly realized that UHS officials were not sufficiently trained to help her.

"The person I talked to who answered the phone at UHS at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning had no idea how to deal with me--and there was, according to the voice on the phone, no one else around who could take my call," she wrote in an e-mail message.

"UHS was devoid of resources for sexual assault victims: there is no rape crisis center," she added.

According to Nadja B. Gould, a clinical social worker at UHS, the College's medical services does not treat enough rape victims each year to maintain staff members trained in specialized rape crisis procedures. UHS used to offer 24-hour rape counseling, but now Gould says while there are always mental health staff members on call, they are not specifically trained to handle sexual assault.

Dr. David S. Rosenthal '59, director of UHS, says his medical staff almost never performs rape kits, which allow medical personnel to collect evidence of the rape that can then be used in a trial.

"If they're not doing them very frequently, they aren't very comfortable doing them," Rosenthal said.

Instead, sexual assault victims must travel Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston to receive treatment from a qualified Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE). SANE nurses, Gould says, usually operate out of a hospital that sees at least 100 rapes a year.

Dr. Veronica Reed Ryback, the director of Beth Israel's Rape Crisis Intervention Center, says her hospital is the most comprehensive provider of these services in the Boston area.

"The reason [students] are brought over here is that in order to administer an evidence collection--they're a lot of details. It really needs to be done by an expert," Ryback said.

That is exactly what the undergraduate assaulted by Douglas says she chose to do in the aftermath of her attack.

"Although getting to the hospital was incredibly difficult, until UHS has some kind of professional rape crisis center, I would recommend that any survivor do the same. The quality of care was worth it once I arrived," she wrote in an e-mail message.

The System

But both women say the services provided are just as important as the type of counseling offered.

"It is of the utmost importance that someone who has been sexually assaulted have a positive experience the first time they are able to pick up the phone and seek help," wrote the woman who was assaulted by Douglas.

The woman whom Douglas sexually assaulted chose Response as her initial contact following the incident.

"I called the hotline because I was on the verge of complete mental and emotional collapse," she wrote. "I was hyperventilating and I needed to talk to someone who I knew would be experienced and levelheaded enough to talk me down and give me advice."

She says the group proved to be a great source of both information and advice.

In an e-mail message to The Crimson, a member of Response says the group takes different roles in various students' healing processes.

Response does not approach police or administration officials with information of the incidents disclosed to them. They also make a point of not "impressing any action" on students who call them first.

"We will not encourage someone to take legal action if he or she does not want to," the Response member wrote. "We will tell the caller that if he or she might want to take legal action later, a rape kit could be very important now. We can explain the contents of a rape kit and what the process is like."

The woman assaulted by Douglas wrote that one of the best pieces of advice Response gave her was directing to her "lifesaver"--Gould.

The student wrote that Gould "knew about the stresses I was dealing with relating to the Ad Board system and the courts more than an off-campus counselor would have."

"She is trained to deal specifically with survivors of sexual assault, which was also nice. It was so important for me at that time to feel understood, and there were very few places at Harvard where I could relax, vent, cry," she wrote.

While Rosenthal and Gould maintain that UHS as a whole can provide adequate counseling both immediately following the attack and in the long term, the woman assaulted by Douglas wrote that the person she talked to early in the morning left her on her own.

"They said they didn't provide transportation, and that I would have to go on my own," the woman wrote. "Not only are there no doctors to perform rape kit exams, but there is no concern with getting victims to a place where they can get a rape kit done."

"They just didn't give me any support whatsoever," she added. "Rather than helping with my decision to have a kit done, which in itself is a difficult thing to do immediately following a very traumatic incident, they told me I could come into UHS and talk to someone," the woman wrote.

"I don't know if they were expressing doubt about whether I needed to go to the hospital, but the real problem for me was the lack of support for a decision I had already made," she wrote.

Trying to Recover

But even after the initial contact with medical and support services, both women say they were in need of long-term treatment the College could not offer. While both praise Gould, who specifically deals with rape victims, they could not count on one UHS official to help them recover.

"I was contacted by members of the administration, but nothing was followed through on," the woman raped by Elster told Perspective, the campus liberal magazine, last month. "I think that they were working under the assumption that if I wanted help I would come to them. That's a fallacious assumption because I had Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because of what I was going through and I was expected to be able to arrange meetings with these people."

As a result, she says she had to go off campus for most of her counseling.

Assistant Dean of the College Karen E. Avery '87, who is also dean of co-education and one of the first administrators sexual assault victims may deal with, told The Crimson last month that she takes a hands-off approach, waiting, after the initial contact, for students to seek her out.

"I try not to be intrusive because I want students to make their own decisions," Avery said. "I usually follow up after a while and say, 'Let me know how you're doing.' I'll send an e-mail...letting them take the first steps."

But the Coalition Against Sexual Violence says such an approach is simply not enough. They hope that their awareness-raising activities over Junior Parents' Weekend and the scheduled rally outside Tuesday's Faculty meeting can encourage enough students to demand change and enough parents to do the same.

"When [parents] get a letter asking for money, they can send a letter back saying, 'No, and this is why,'" said one Coalition member at a Wednesday night meeting to plan today's tabling activities in front of the Science Center. "The next time they get a phone call, they can tell the person on the line, "No, and this is why.'"